Sylff News

Three Sylff fellows at Ruhr University Bochum (RUB), Germany, convened a two-day international conference on “Forced Migration in Transition: Perspectives from Social Science and Law” in November 2019. The fellows—Benedikt Behlert, Corinna Land, and Robin Ramshahye—have different disciplinary backgrounds but share a research interest in forced migration. The Sylff program at RUB encourages an interdisciplinary approach and is called Sylff Mikrokolleg.

All participants, including members of the audience, engaged in active dialogue.

The four sessions of the conference focused on the “Transition of Concepts,” “Transition of Perspectives,” “Transition of Law,” and “Transition of Civic Spaces” and sought to elucidate the dynamics of migration in a global context. People leave their homes for various reasons, such as to escape armed conflict, environmental degradation, and economic hardship. Migrants are not necessarily passive victims but often make strategic decisions to leave in search of a better life for themselves and their families.

Ending remarks by the three Bochum fellows (from left, Robin Ramshahye, Corinna Land, and Benedikt Behlert).

The three fellows organized all aspects of the conference, from carefully developing the program and choosing session topics that would attract a broad audience to inviting panelists from different countries, securing funding, renting the venue, arranging for the catering of food and drinks, and even cleaning up after the event! They also moderated the sessions, encouraging active dialogue among the more than 50 participants.

The Sylff Association secretariat is very proud of the commitment the fellows showed in convening this conference and congratulates them on the success of this worthy initiative.